Mike (4 page)

12
TUMBLE TURN

From outside, she could hear the water-sounds. The regular beat of his arms as he plunged them again and again into the cool water of the pool. The slight splash as his kick broke the surface.

Sounds which took her back … To another morning. Another time.

Rosalind, fifteen, and already taller than her father. Rosalind, who had missed out on the Nationals by only one tenth of a second. Who climbed the ladder out of the water that day, took the mug from her mother and said, “Mama, I'm quitting swimming.”

After all the years of training, the early mornings, the dreams of success …

Riny glanced out of the window at the boy, as he turned at the far end of the pool. He was a natural. She had explained the racing turn only once, and he was tumbling perfectly. It had cut half a second from his turn-around time.

Ros had taken longer to master it. But she had been younger … And then, at fifteen, it was all over.

Tony, when she had faced him with it that night had just shrugged. “If it's what she wants,” he had said. “It's her life.”

Always so calm. For him, the kids could never do a thing wrong. And he was right, as usual. It was her life. Her decision. Her mother's dreams were just that. Her mother's dreams. Not hers.

It had been the same when Ros had broken the news, years later, that she was leaving Sydney. For Perth; a new life. Tony had smiled and hidden his disappointment, as he always did. And he had used the same words later that night, when they finally discussed it.

“It's her life …”

The milk was boiling. She lifted the pan from the stove and poured it into the mug, stirring it with a teaspoon until the chocolate was thick, then she added two spoons of sugar, stirred again and carried it out of the kitchen.

Just inside the screen-door, she stopped to watch him swim. In the last weeks, he had grown in strength and his style was smoother, more efficient. He was a quick learner, and he took advice. It was good to see.

Like old times.

But something worried her.

He wanted so much to win. To bring down the other boy; to prove himself. If he should lose … She knew that he would not allow for the possibility.

But it was a possibility. And it worried her.

With her free hand, Riny pushed open the door and moved outside.

13
A SORT-OF-SMILE

Mum was pleased that I'd developed an interest — even if it did get me up early in the morning, splashing around in cold water, when I could be getting an extra hour's sleep in a warm bed.

She had to leave for work at six-thirty; the public transport out this way has scarcity value. But it meant that my new-found “hobby” gave us the chance to have breakfast together, and I think she was secretly pleased by that. Of course, the fact that I was smiling once in a while probably helped.

Not that I had too much to smile about.

Shane Thomas was still on my case, and now I wasn't too popular with Rowley, either. Whenever he saw me in the playground, he always seemed to find a piece of paper or three that he was sure, as “a good school citizen”, I “wouldn't mind” picking up. I did think of pointing out that, as “a good school citizen”, I never dropped any papers — that I didn't even get to eat my own lunch — but there didn't seem much point. So, I just tried to avoid being around when Rowley was on the prowl. What with him and Shane Thomas's gang of dorks and morons, it seemed as if l was avoiding half the school.

Still, there was one bright spot.

Lisdalia Petrantonio.

Somewhere along the line, she'd decided that I hadn't crawled out from under a rock after all — at least, not recently. And she'd even talked to me a couple of times …

Don't go looking like that. It was just things like “Good morning, Michael,” or “It's a hot day, don't you think, Michael?” Lisdalia
never
uses the short version of anyone's name. I think, deep down, that it comes from having such an unusual name herself, one that no one in the school has thought up a comfortable way of shortening. I couldn't see anyone calling her “Liz” or “Lizzie” — it'd make her sound like a skink or something. And she's far more impressive than that.

Unfortunately, impressive or not, her opinion didn't carry too much weight. She was too clever to be popular, and she spent most of her lunchtimes in the library with the other library monitors, so the fact that she talked to me at all wasn't exactly a major event in the social life of the school.

She most likely wouldn't have had the chance to talk to me anyway, except that I took to hiding out there myself. The library wasn't quite as exposed as the handball area, and it was probably the one place in the whole school where I was more at home than Shane Thomas. If you need help reading your own name, the library definitely isn't your favourite building.

I actually got to enjoy reading.

I'd never really hated it; it was just that there'd always been so much to do. Back home, I'd had friends. We played handball or basketball or football at lunch-times, or just sat around and talked. There wasn't any time to sit and read, except perhaps some nights, when you'd finished your homework and there was nothing halfway decent on t.v. — or Mum wanted to watch the ABC, and you weren't right into the political crisis in Canberra or Russia or wherever it happened to be that night.

One thing about books. You can almost guarantee that the good guy will win in the end. And if the story involves a girl, that he'll probably get her too. Which is encouraging when you're preparing to take down the biggest jerk in the school, and you don't want to fail and look like a bigger idiot than everyone thinks you are already.

At that stage, even a sort-of-smile from Lisdalia did great things for my ego. I mean, I didn't have a clue what she thought of me deep down, but “Good morning” is at least a form of recognition.

And she has a really cute smile.

14
ABOUT WINNING …

Shane Thomas' smile is a bit like a hyena's. You know, the lips curl back over his yellow teeth, and he has a sort of … furtive look in his eyes, like he doesn't want to give too much away about
why
he's smiling.

“Furtive” is a good word. I found it in a thesaurus when I was writing a story for Miss Devcic — she's the stand-in teacher we get most of the time when Ms Radford, our regular jailer has had enough of Shane Thomas and Chris Walker being smart … alecs, and has to take one of her weekly “stress-days”.

It means sly and underhanded. Sneaky. And it suggests that the person being “furtive” is a little uncertain about what he — or she — is doing.

Shane the Pain is never furtive when he's threatening to rip your face off, or tripping you up or pushing you around in front of his mates. He's confident doing that.

It's smiling he's uncertain about.

I
was getting a bit uncertain about exactly what it was I was hoping to prove. I mean, say I did beat him. What if I'd miscalculated and no one really gave a damn? Then I'd just have got him even madder. For nothing. He'd probably lie awake nights working out new ways to make my life hell.

Besides, there was no guarantee that I
would
beat him. He was good. And though I was getting better every day, I had a lot of catching-up to do. One thing was for sure; I wasn't going to mention “the Plan” to anyone — except Riny.

She liked the idea of me training — I think it brought back old times for her. I'm not so sure that she approved of why I was doing it, though.

“When you race,” she said one morning, “you do it for yourself. Not to bring down the other guy.”

I didn't agree. “But how can you be competitive if you don't want to beat him? Why race if you don't want to win? ”

“Did I say anything about not wanting to win?” She was wearing
that
smile. The one she put on when she knew she'd trapped me. Her body might have been slowing down on her, but her mind was sharp. She ran me round in circles. “I just said that you shouldn't do it to bring down the other guy.”

I must have looked confused. I felt it. She went on, “Look, you used to play basketball and football, didn't you? ”

I nodded. She already knew the answer.

“And you played to win, I suppose.”

“Of course.” I still couldn't see what she was getting at.

“Competition is a challenge. A way of proving yourself. Like swimming against the clock. If you swim faster than the other swimmer, or score more goals than the other team, you feel good about yourself. That doesn't mean you have to hate the other guy, or feel superior that you ”brought him down'. Next time he might beat you.

“Some of the best sportspeople in the world are really good friends when they aren't competing.
They
understand the difference.”

I
didn't. At least, I could see what she was getting at, but
she
didn't understand the particular situation I was in.

She'd missed the point.

I didn't hate Shane Thomas because I wanted to beat him, I wanted to beat him because I
hated
him.

15
THE “FUN” PART

Sometime, many years ago, when they were working out all the rules for educating kids, one of the rule-makers must have had shares in a camping site — or a whole string of camping sites. Because I've never heard of a school in the whole country that didn't run a camp for at least their older kids. And I can't for the life of me work out what they're supposed to achieve.

You take a bunch of kids and a few teachers, put them on the oldest bus you can dig up, and send them off to some primitive hole, where the kids can't use their Sega games or their Walkmans (or is it Walk-men?) or any of the other modem inventions that you know they can't live without — because there's no power and no battery shops, and they aren't allowed to bring them anyway, because the teachers “can't take responsibility” for them (the electronic stuff, not the kids). You make them eat food you wouldn't serve at a piggery — and take turns cooking it, which only means it turns out worse.

And you take the newest kid in the whole school, who never did a thing to you personally, and stick him in the same cabin as Shane “Wait-till-you-go-to-sleep-you-little-worm, you'll-get-yours” Thomas.

Talk about torture.

I tried my best to get out of going. I told my mum to plead poverty, and say she couldn't afford the fifty dollars they were charging.

Imagine actually
paying
to put yourself through hell. If that's what they think of as education, it's no wonder the world's screwed up.

But Mum wouldn't be in it. She said it was embarrassing to admit that you had money problems, and besides we weren't
that
badly off.

It wouldn't have worked, anyway. For some reason, they considered the whole event so important that they were willing to “subsidise those families who find it difficult to raise the full cost of the camp”. It was in the weekly newsletter, and Mrs Stimpson went on to talk about “these difficult economic times” and the importance of “events like these in developing the social skills of our children [we were always “our children” in the weekly newsletters] and allowing them to interact with staff members on a less formal basis … ” and on, and on. Maybe she had shares in the camping site.

I certainly didn't see any evidence of Shane the Pain developing any “social skills”, and all
I
learned from the whole week is that you really can go without sleep for five nights …if you're nervous enough, and you're sharing a cabin with an apprentice axe-mur-derer who snores so loudly that you can never be completely certain that it isn't all an act and that you really won't “get yours” as soon as you close your eyes. He may not have been very smart, but he sure knew just how to keep you scared sleepless.

Right up to the last minute, I tried to get out of going. I developed a terrible case of “campitis”, a rare disease which always strikes the day before you're due to get on the bus, and has the most excruciating (don't blame me, blame the thesaurus) symptoms: headaches, bone-aches, almost-vomiting … None of them convincing enough to fool my mother into letting me stay home.

“It'll be good for you,” she said.

There she went again, deciding my “good” without asking me.

I suppose, if I didn't have the hang-ups — and if I wasn't sharing a torture chamber with one of Freddy Kreuger's nightmares — I'd have to admit that the camp did have its good points. Most of the other kids seemed to enjoy themselves, and things were really pretty well organised, with bushwalks, games, nature-study tours and lots of other activities. But after a couple of nights without sleep, even those lost their appeal.

By the end of the week, I was a wreck. And the Pain hadn't had to actually
do
anything. He waited until the very last day, then almost all my belongings mysteriously disappeared: bag, clothes, shoes. All he left was my sleeping-bag and a toothbrush that had dropped out onto the dirt.

I found most of the stuff after almost half an hour of searching, which included missing breakfast. He'd emptied the whole bagful into a hole under a tree beside the creek. A muddy hole, full of last night's rain.

There was no point in raising a stink. I knew who it was, but there was no way I could ever prove it, so I was stuck with going home in some jeans and a T- shirt that I borrowed from Aaron Herbert, who was about my size. When I gave them back to him a few days later, poor Aaron couldn't even remember lending them to me; he thought he'd lost them. But I appreciated his kindness, even if he couldn't recall it himself.

And that was the “fun” part of the term.

16
A DIFFERENT KIND OF
WATER …

The hinges of the old chest creaked, as she forced open the lid. Sitting on a kitchen chair, Riny leaned over the lip of the chest and peered inside. At her history.

The scrapbook of news clippings her mother had kept during her short career. The faded swim suit from her one appearance in the Netherlands National Team. And the medal: real gold, untarnished after more than fifty years.

European Championships, 1938
1OOm Freestyle
R. Blankevoort

Just a year before the War. And the end of it all.

She held the medal in her hand, and remembered the feeling. The cheers of the huge crowd as she bent forward on the winners' podium and the official slid the ribbon over her head. How she had waved to the crowd. To her mother and her sister high in the stands. Her father had been unable to get leave from the army during that time of tension.

She remembered the lights, bright on the water …

Suddenly, she closed her eyes. The memory was gone, replaced by another.

A different night and different lights. And fire, bright on a different kind of water …

When Michael came home, she was waiting for him. As he turned the corner, he could see her behind the window, looking down the street, waiting.

As usual, he stopped to toss his school-bag onto the veranda before he made his way across the street, and climbed the path to her front door.

“I won it in 1938.” He had put down his coffee cup, and she handed him the medal. “It was the last time I ever swam … in competition. I was twenty-one.”

“What made you stop?” Mike spoke without lifting his gaze from the shining disc of gold on his palm.

“The War. It began the next year. And after it I couldn't swim at all. Ever.”

Something in Riny's tone, dragged his attention back to her face. She was staring beyond him, out of the window. He noticed a shudder pass through her, and reached across to place a hand on her knee.

She looked up, confused for a moment.

“What happened? Why couldn't you carry on after the War?”

For a moment, she looked at him in silence. Then she spoke.

“We were torpedoed. When Holland was about to be invaded, and we saw what was happening, my mother arranged for us to get out. My sister and I. There was a ship leaving for America. We had relatives in Canada, and she thought — she hoped — that there we would be safe.

“One day out, in the middle of the Atlantic, our ship was hit. It sank in minutes. There was no time to launch the life-boats. For sixteen hours, a whole night and morning, I kept my sister afloat. The water was freezing; we were almost dead when the navy ship found us … ” Again the shudder, as if she could feel once more the cold of the endless depths.

“Of all the hundreds of people on board, only a handful of us survived the night. I was so cold. So scared.

“From then until this day, I have never swum. Not a stroke. Sometimes, I remember the races and I take out the medals and the clippings. But the fear always returns. I see the flames on the surface of the sea. And I hear the screams.”

Gently, he placed the medal back onto the coffee table, but she made no move to put it away. She just stared at it.

And remembered.